Wraparound student supports

Federal lawmakers seem to be getting serious about a rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The OTL Campaign was proud to join over 100 grassroots community and labor groups this week to release an open letter to Congressional leaders urging them to support the development of full-service community schools, end the school-to-prison pipeline, halt federal funding for charter school expansion, and maintain the Title I program.

After months of intense organizing in Albany and across the state, education organizers in New York got a mix of victories and setbacks in the new state budget.

Chanting "We Can't Wait!" and marching through downtown Albany, over 2,000 teachers, advocates, parents, and students rallied last Wednesday for an increase in state funding for public schools. Despite a 2006 ruling from the New York state supreme court that held that New York had failed to provide public schools with adequate educational resources under the state constitution, many schools have yet to receive the required level of funding.

University of Massachusetts professor Mark Warren has published a valuable primer for understanding how our schools and students are impacted by broader inequalities in our society and how the seeds of an emerging education justice movement can take root and flourish into a political force to be reckoned with.

Following the landmark Lake View court case in Arkansas over a decade ago, the state has made huge strides in equalizing school funding and trying to give all students access to a great public education – but there's still room for improvement.

A report from the Alliance for Quality Education says NY Governor Andrew Cuomo owes New York City public schools $2,667 per student, which adds up to $2.5 billion worth of resources currently being withheld from the city's students, teachers and their schools.

Part 2 of the ongoing series "A Perfect Storm: The Takeover of New Orleans Public Schools," chronicles how the city's struggling public schools were seized by the state following Hurricane Katrina and handed over to private, charter school operators. Now, in the nation's first all-charter school district, New Orleans parents and students must contend with the failures of this massive experiment in "school choice."

The Schott Foundation for Public Education has released "Black Lives Matter," the 2015 installment of its biennial 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males. The report's latest estimates for national public high school graduation rates are 59 percent for Black male students, 65 percent for Latino males, and 80 percent for White, non-Latino males.

It's been nearly 50 years since the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, but Congress, stuck in a debate about the role of high-stakes testing in school reform, seems to have forgotten the law's original commitment to ensuring fairness in education funding.

As part of its annual Condition of Education in the Commonwealth report, the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy has outlined three ways Massachusetts can build on its already strong education system to better prepare students for school, support them while they're there, and help them make the transition to college or a career.